KEVIN Phillips revealed he had an inkling he would score the winner at Blues adding: "I don't tend to lose derbies".

KEVIN Phillips revealed he had an inkling he would score the winner at Blues adding: "I don't tend to lose derbies".

Phillips has only ever lost two - one with Sunderland and one with Portsmouth - but he has scored his fair share of winners.

"Of course I had a feeling I was going to score!" said the striker, bursting with pride at his 19thminute goal.

"I go into every game hoping to score but with it being a derby, I had that little extra incentive."

Phillips had previously scored four goals against Newcastle, one against Middlesbrough and a winner last season against Portsmouth - all in derbies.

"My record is good and it continued so I'm looking forward to the next one,'' he said. "I scored the winner for Southampton against Portsmouth last season and did the same in my first game against Newcastle for Sunderland.

"Sunderland-Newcastle derbies are big, as is this one, but the difference in those games is that you can have an extra 15,000-20,000 people because of the size of the stadium.

"I'm sure if St Andrew's was bigger, you'd get the same number of people watching.

"All derbies are big games because of the passion flying about but I always look forward to them and I really enjoyed this one.''

Phillips came into the game after missing four matches with a calf strain. He added: "That was my first competitive game for nearly a month.

"You can do all the training in the world, but nothing beats actually getting out there, so I felt for the team's sake, I needed to come off and get a fresh pair of legs out there. I had a good 65-70 minutes and now I'll have a good week's training and I'll be fully fit again next week."